VAUGHAN, THOMAS (fl. 1772–1820), dramatist, son of a lawyer, was educated in the same profession. He obtained the post of clerk to the commission of peace of the city of Westminster, and about 1782 became captain of a company of the Westminster volunteers. He had a great partiality for the stage, and devoted much of his leisure to dramatic literature. In 1772 he wrote a series of essays in the ‘Morning Post’ on the Richmond Theatre. In 1776 he produced a farce entitled ‘Love's Metamorphoses,’ which was acted for Mrs. Wrighten's benefit at Drury Lane on 15 April. It was afterwards rejected by Kemble, manager of Drury Lane, in 1789, and by George Colman the younger, manager of the Haymarket, in 1791. Vaughan published it in 1791, under the title ‘Love's Vagaries’ (London, 4to), with a dedication to the rejectors. In 1776 he published another farce, entitled ‘The Hotel, or the Double Valet’ (London, 4to), which appeared at Drury Lane on 21 Nov. His next dramatic venture was ‘Deception,’ a political comedy, which was acted at Drury Lane on 28 Sept. 1784. None of Vaughan's plays possessed much merit, and they met with no success. He was the author of a novel entitled ‘Fashionable Follies’ (London, 1782), which had some vogue; he republished it in 1810 with considerable additions, and with a dedication to Colman, with whom he had formerly quarrelled, and who bestowed on him the nickname of ‘Dapper.’ ‘The Retort’ (London, 1761, 4to), a reply to Churchill's ‘Rosciad,’ which contained an allusion to Vaughan as ‘Dapper,’ is also assigned to him (Lowe, Engl. Theatrical Lit.; Rosciad, ed. Lowe, 1891, p. 31). He was a friend of Sheridan, and is said to have been the original of Dangle in the ‘Critic.’